Role in tackling health inequalities put to MPs
Gaps in provision of health services can be identified by needs
assessments |
Primary care trusts are ignoring the potential of community pharmacy in helping eradicate health inequality, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has told an influential committee of MPs.
The Society highlights the use of pharmaceutical needs assessments as
a way for PCTs in England to identify the gaps in the provision of community
pharmacy services and stresses that PCTs need to carry them out.
The
point is made in written
evidence from the Society to the House of Commons
Health Committee as part of the MPs’ ongoing inquiry into
the contribution of the NHS to reducing health inequalities.
The Society acknowledges that community pharmacists have a significant
role to play in beating health inequality because of their extended clinical
role under the pharmacy contract and their accessibility to patients.
But the Society adds: “Pharmacy services are not being adequately
commissioned, and where they are commissioned they need to be better
integrated with mainstream primary community health services.”
For the NHS to tackle health inequalities successfully the Society believes
it needs to “have in place a system that makes the best use of
and consistently invests in community-based services it already has.
This is not currently happening in community pharmacy.”
The Society also warns MPs that if the NHS vision for the future is to
create GP-led polyclinics or merge smaller practices into larger organisations
then it is essential that the existing network of pharmacies is “maintained,
rationalised where appropriate and expanded where desirable”.
The lack of consistency around PCTs commissioning community pharmacists
to deliver primary care services is also highlighted in evidence to the
committee by Alliance Boots. The company says that the commissioning
of enhanced services under the pharmacy contract is “variable” and
is creating a “fragmented system of postcode services across the
country”.
One way around this, the company suggests, is for more pharmacy services
in the national contract to move from “enhanced” to “advanced” status.
This could include services such as sexual health screening; diabetes
and weight management, it says.
Alliance Boots adds that it also wanted to see a closer link between “the
contractual arrangements underpinning GP and pharmacy services” which
it suggests would bring more collaborative working, helping to develop
community pharmacy services and enable pharmacists to carry out more
clinical duties traditionally performed by GPs.
Lloydspharmacy is also keen to see greater partnership working between
GPs and community pharmacists which it suggests could be achieved by
offering GPs incentives under the Quality and Outcomes Framework in their
contact.
But it also highlights the need for the health service to recognise
and accept the role that community pharmacy can play. This could be met,
it suggests, through greater integration of the primary care workforce
and “formalised through a new primary care contract for service
provision”.
The written evidence has been published ahead of the Health Committee’s
next meeting on 30 April 2008 when MPs will hear oral evidence to the
inquiry, including representation from the National Institute for Health
and Clinical
Excellence. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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